Anti-Soros billboard campaign will not be investigated

The report on the government’s controversial George Soros-bashing billboards filed by Politics Can Be Different (LMP) co-chair Ákos Hadházy has been rejected by the Budapest High Prosecution Office, reports Index.hu.

Hadházy filed a report for misappropriation of funds claiming the government inappropriately spent HUF 5.6 billion on the “Let’s not let Soros have the last laugh!” campaign. Hadházy argued that the campaign amounted to an improper use of public funds.

“According to my point of view, governmental communicators may not expend (public funds) on campaigns unconnected to executive power, otherwise they would constitute a misappropriation of funds,” reads Hadházy’s report.

The Budapest High Prosecution Office justified the rejection of Hadházy’s report by the fact that the billboards, which many claim to be thinly veiled political anti-semitism, also informed citizens that “99% of Hungarians reject illegal immigration”.

“The moral judgment of the campaign and the related social-political disagreement is beyond the scope of the penal law,” the prosecutor concluded.

According to Hungarian law, misappropriation of funds of this scope could be punished by up to 10 years in prison.